The Marrow of Tradition | Page 7

half an hour."
Delamere threw a glance at Ellis which was not exactly friendly. Why
should this fellow always be on hand to emphasize his own
shortcomings?
"The rector is not here," answered Tom triumphantly. "You see I am
not the last."
"The rector," replied Clara, "was called out of town at six o'clock this
evening, to visit a dying man, and so cannot be here. You are the last,
Tom, and Mr. Ellis was the first."
Ellis was ruefully aware that this comparison in his favor was the only
visible advantage that he had gained from his early arrival. He had not
seen Miss Pemberton a moment sooner by reason of it. There had been
a certain satisfaction in being in the same house with her, but Delamere
had arrived in time to share or, more correctly, to monopolize, the
sunshine of her presence.
Delamere gave a plausible excuse which won Clara's pardon and
another enchanting smile, which pierced Ellis like a dagger. He knew
very well that Delamere's excuse was a lie. Ellis himself had been
ready as early as six o'clock, but judging this to be too early, had
stopped in at the Clarendon Club for half an hour, to look over the
magazines. While coming out he had glanced into the card-room,
where he had seen his rival deep in a game of cards, from which
Delamere had evidently not been able to tear himself until the last
moment. He had accounted for his lateness by a story quite inconsistent
with these facts.
The two young people walked over to a window on the opposite side of
the large room, where they stood talking to one another in low tones.
The major had left the room for a moment. Old Mr. Delamere, who was
watching his grandson and Clara with an indulgent smile, proceeded to

rub salt into Ellis's wounds.
"They make a handsome couple," he observed. "I remember well when
her mother, in her youth an ideally beautiful woman, of an excellent
family, married Daniel Pemberton, who was not of so good a family,
but had made money. The major, who was only a very young man then,
disapproved of the match; he considered that his mother, although a
widow and nearly forty, was marrying beneath her. But he has been a
good brother to Clara, and a careful guardian of her estate. Ah, young
gentleman, you cannot appreciate, except in imagination, what it means,
to one standing on the brink of eternity, to feel sure that he will live on
in his children and his children's children!"
Ellis was appreciating at that moment what it meant, in cold blood,
with no effort of the imagination, to see the girl whom he loved
absorbed completely in another man. She had looked at him only once
since Tom Delamere had entered the room, and then merely to use him
as a spur with which to prick his favored rival.
"Yes, sir," he returned mechanically, "Miss Clara is a beautiful young
lady."
"And Tom is a good boy--a fine boy," returned the old gentleman. "I
am very well pleased with Tom, and shall be entirely happy when I see
them married."
Ellis could not echo this sentiment. The very thought of this marriage
made him miserable. He had always understood that the engagement
was merely tentative, a sort of family understanding, subject to
confirmation after Delamere should have attained his majority, which
was still a year off, and when the major should think Clara old enough
to marry. Ellis saw Delamere with the eye of a jealous rival, and judged
him mercilessly,--whether correctly or not the sequel will show. He did
not at all believe that Tom Delamere would make a fit husband for
Clara Pemberton; but his opinion would have had no weight,--he could
hardly have expressed it without showing his own interest. Moreover,
there was no element of the sneak in Lee Ellis's make-up. The very fact
that he might profit by the other's discomfiture left Delamere secure, so

far as he could be affected by anything that Ellis might say. But Ellis
did not shrink from a fair fight, and though in this one the odds were
heavily against him, yet so long as this engagement remained indefinite,
so long, indeed, as the object of his love was still unwed, he would not
cease to hope. Such a sacrifice as this marriage clearly belonged in the
catalogue of impossibilities. Ellis had not lived long enough to learn
that impossibilities are merely things of which we have not learned, or
which we do not wish to happen.
Sandy returned at the end of a quarter of an hour, and dinner was
announced. Mr. Delamere led the way to the dining-room with Mrs.
Ochiltree. Tom followed with Clara.